Recent Court Case Limits And Shapes Judicial Review Under SGMA

A July 30, 2026 decision from the Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District in California in AquAlliance, et al. v. Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency, et al. will shape what challenges will be brought under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) and what those challenges will look like going forward. Importantly, the decision may limit the scope of judicial review of groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) and encourage deference to the Department of Water Resources (DWR).

SGMA Basics

SGMA is California’s law for managing its groundwater resources. Its core concept is to encourage local control of groundwater. Local agencies that formed groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are responsible for developing GSPs describing how they will bring their groundwater basins into a condition of sustainability and manage them sustainably going forward. DWR reviews those GSPs initially and then on a recurring basis. DWR and the State Water Resources Control Board possess review and oversight powers that make it possible for them to require changes to GSPs. They even have the power to take control over managing the groundwater basin and require certain actions by groundwater users in a basin if GSAs or a GSP is insufficient.

The Decision

A group of plaintiffs – AquAlliance, California Water Impact Network, and California Sportfishing Protection Alliance – brought a lawsuit styled as a reverse validation action in Butte County Superior Court challenging a GSP approved and submitted to DWR by Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency and Rock Creek Reclamation District as being non-compliant with SGMA. The trial court overruled defendants’ demurrer, holding that Water Code § 10726.6 permits reverse validation actions. The trial court later granted defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ lawsuit on the ground that DWR’s approval of defendants’ GSP mooted the action.

Reverse Validation is Available – Good News for Plaintiffs Here, But Potentially Bad News for Parties Interested in Challenging GSPs

California’s validation statutes provide a way for governmental agencies to bring a lawsuit to confirm the validity of certain of its actions specified by statute. The validation statutes, Code of Civil Procedure §§ 860 et seq., provide that if the agency does nothing to validate its action, then challengers may attack the validity of the same action (i.e., bring a so-called “reverse validation” lawsuit), but only during the 60-day validation period. After the 60-day limitations period, any challenge to the agency action that could have been validated is time-barred. The effect is essentially the same as the agency bringing the validation action and winning it.

Defendants here claimed that only validation by the agency was available, and not reverse validation, based on the statutory language in Water Code, § 10726.6, subd. (a). The Court’s acceptance of this argument would have meant that any future challenge to an agency’s adoption of a GSP could only proceed under Code of Civil Procedure § 1085 pursuant to Water Code § 10726.6, subd. (e). 

However, the Court disagreed, holding that the plain language of the statute, past cases approving reverse validation under similar statutory language, and the fact that the Legislature could have, but did not, expressly prohibit reverse validation of GSPs all meant that reverse validation is available.

While plaintiffs in this case won on the reverse validation point, this holding may harm future GSP challengers. By holding that reverse validation applies, this decision will force GSP challengers to navigate strict procedural hurdles imposed by the validation statutes. Non-compliance with those requirements may result in dismissal of a lawsuit with prejudice.

Good news for GSAs: Courts Can Apply Primary Jurisdiction to Defer to DWR’s GSP Evaluation

The Court held that the trial court erred by ruling that DWR’s approval of defendants’ GSP mooted plaintiffs’ action. The Court analyzed the ruling under three “‘closely related doctrines that either require or permit judicial deference to administrative agencies’: abstention, primary jurisdiction, and exhaustion of administrative remedies.” The Court ultimately upheld the dismissal by applying primary jurisdiction.

The Court found that the trial court erred to the extent it applied judicial abstention, as that doctrine is appropriate where the lawsuit involves complex policy issues of broad importance better handled by administrative agencies or the Legislature. Here the evaluation of the GSP would only affect one GSA, and the trial court did not include any holdings about the complexity of the policy at issue.

The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies also did not apply. Exhaustion applies where a claim is cognizable in the first instance by an administrative agency alone. SGMA makes a GSA’s adoption of a GSP subject to judicial review without waiting for DWR’s review.

The Court held the primary jurisdiction doctrine did apply despite the trial court not explicitly invoking it. Under the doctrine, courts should defer to administrative agencies when the statutory structure/regulatory scheme places a particular issue in that agency’s special competence. While SGMA expressly allows and does not bar judicial concurrent review, the structure of the statute and the specific questions here (whether the GSP complied with SGMA) were appropriate for deference under the doctrine. Specifically, the questions involved a highly technical sustainability evaluation. The Court pointed to the pervasive and self-contained system of administrative procedure included in SGMA, the long-term nature of SGMA, the highly technical nature of GSP review, and the need to avoid inconsistency between courts’ and DWR’s evaluations as all supporting the application of the doctrine. The Court concluded that the two goals of the primary jurisdiction doctrine – enhancing court decisionmaking through relying on agency expertise and assuring uniform application of the law – would thus both be met by applying the doctrine here. In short, Plaintiffs were asking the trial court to do the job that SGMA delegated to DWR.

Ultimately, the Court held that the primary jurisdiction doctrine applied and thus the trial court did not err by dismissing the lawsuit after DWR approved the GSP at issue.

Impacts/Path Forward

The decision includes a section addressing the limits of its holdings. The Court indicated that the result might have been different if the action had turned on questions of statutory interpretation or construction rather than technical issues of sustainability. Also, courts still can review DWR’s determinations regarding a GSP and hear other non-administrative or common law claims.

SGMA is a complex statute with numerous requirements, and there are seemingly numerous different ways to challenge a GSP and other actions of a GSA. However, the decision will substantially limit the ability to challenge GSPs regarding technical matters within the scope of DWR review. Seeking review of DWR’s approval of a GSP is likely not a strong option, absent some substantial error by DWR, as courts are highly likely to defer to DWR as they did here.